17 Questions with Elliott Earls
Originally published in 2+3d, Issue 10, 2004
1. Mr. Earls, please introduce yourself.
My name is Elliott Peter Earls. I was born in Cincinnati, Ohio into an Irish catholic family. I'm an Aries. My turn on's include; guitars, drawing, working out and dogs.
2. Your career as a designer stands in marked contrast to that of the conventional designer. Standing on the periphery of the profession, you are an outsider. What do you see going on today in contemporary design practice. Are there any trends you notice, is it progressing or has it fallen onto hard times.
Well as you mentioned, my work is definitely located on the periphery of design with a capital "D." I have always felt that Design "Proper" is all about customer service and the sublimation of the individual. Ninety-five percent of all design work done today is the equivalent of info-burger flipping at the local McDonalds. Most designers are nothing more than trained monkey's or indentured servants in an info-economy. So back to your question, Has design fallen onto hard times? Accept for a brief historical period when Artist/Designer/Giants like El Lissitsky, Kurt Schwitters and Piet Zwart were working, design has never been all that it could be. Paul Rand was a pygmie raised by giants .
What is needed is a liberation of the designer. We need design to quit being the underachiever of all the arts. We need designers to strive to achieve the same level of (?) emotional impact, transcendence, groove etc... that the other arts have achieved.
3. What is the liberation of the designer...how is that done? Is this a popular movement, to shift the discipline or is it the thankless task of rugged individualism? Does this connect or relate to the practice at large, or is this simply a way of shirking 'traditional design responsibilities.'
No what I'm talking about is liberation from the shackles of professional and societal expectation. And by definition it would be the (mostly) thankless task of rugged individualism. If we take a look at an historical period between WWI and WWII, we find figures like El Lissitzky, Kurt Schwitters, Piet zwart, Helmut Hertzfeld, and the Cabaret Voltaire. These men and movements were giants, doing socially relavant work that has been critical to the history and development of typography and design. These proto-designers were Artists with a capital "A" and (proto)designers with a capital "D." And yet the institutions of contemporary design (if we look at an institutional model), have forgotten almost completely about this modality. Look, the major design magazines, and the major design museums could give a crap about these issues. I repeat, Paul Rand was a pygmie raised by Giants.
4. Following a series of initial setbacks, firings and periods of unemployment, you forged a self-initiated practice. Are you an anomaly, or just a harbinger of things to come?
I got fired because of my attitude. I didn't think spray painting hair on Michael Bolton's head and throwing his name up in the upper left hand corner in the latest font from Chank was good design. Excuse me for wanting more from what I was going to spend the rest of my life doing. Excuse me for having a shred of self-respect. As I mentioned earlier I believe that ninety-five percent of all design work being done is pathetic. But, there is the other five percent. I know plenty of people, from my boy Bobby up in Connecticut who runs his own design firm, to Matt and Warren at oneNine, that are busting their asses to fight the good fight. I Think we got to strive man. I think we can't accept societies definition of design. I don't want to work at McDonalds.
5. Fighting the good fight. Is this a virtuous drive, moralistic quest, or simply 'sticking it to the man'?
To fight the good fight essentially means to strive. It means to believe in a greater goal for our work, and simply never backdown from that. Excuse the expression, but "F" designing CD covers for rock bands. Talk about navel gazing!
6. What informs your work? Let me qualify that, given your disdain for professional design practice, what are the sources you draw on for the works you make. What are the aims of the work.
The same things that inform the work of any musician, writer, poet or filmmaker, Life! I'm moved by squandered potential, the sadness of loss, the fleeting nature and divine mystery of life, The power of love, The power of hate! Race, sex and death! Now you've put your finger on it! It's not that I'm adamantly against commercial design work (I LOVE the ipod). It's not that I'll never sully my self with work for hire. the issues is, that designers are rarely motivated by "life" issues, in a direct way. Sure that annual report may be about sex and death but as a deep sub text. Listen to Robert Johnson his motivation is unequivocal. That's what I'm interested in.
7. What do you have kicking in your ipod these days?
Well, I've been writing new music so I''ve been listening to own music a lot. But I would have to say that I'm kicking a late 90's English 4AD kind of thing. A lot of "Dead can Dance." Some "New Order." A little bit of "The Original Carter Family." A pinch of Yo Yo Ma. And sprinkling of "Tool."
8. You are currently the head of 2D Design at Cranbrook. You follow in a short, but illustrious line of previous heads: Katherine McCoy and Scott and Laurie Makela. The McCoys period was marked by the inclusion of theory into design discourse, which has had lasting consequences; the Makela's mantra of 'experience as theory' created a provocative and charged period. And now, there's you. What's the deal?
What IS the deal? I ask my self that everyday. I have been working very hard to put down on paper, and in lecture form, exactly what is "the deal." You see, before taking the job at Cranbrook, I never considered my self an academic. I still don't. I want to be very clear about this! I am not anti-intellectual, or anti-academic. As a matter of fact over the course of my career, universities, art schools and museums have been the sustaining life blood of my work. I Love school. But, I want my perspective to be directly informed by practice. I want to be able to lead my department from experience. I want my work to be the vehicle through which I lead by example.
But as I have mentioned, a natural result of this position is the necessity of being able to articulate an ideological, philosophical and methodological position to the students. So, as I mentioned I have been spending a lot of good quality time writing about these issues.
9. You are now in your third year at Cranbrook. How have you adjusted and what have you learned?
I've learned that Cranbrook In it's best moments is absolutely Heavenly! I've learned that Cranbrook at its worst moments is Hell. Thak God I seem to spend considerably more time in Heaven than in Hell? What am I talking about? Well the design department is a highly competitive environment with a lot of talented people. Along with this comes eccentricities and insecurities. My job for better or worse is to "stir the drink," to throw the intellectual cocktail party. At any good coctail party you need a lot of friction, but tooo much and it becomes a war zone. Not enough and the studio is dead. Walking that line and getting everybody to walk that line with maturity is difficult.
10. Is Cranbrook still important, significant, or relevant these days? If so, what keeps it there.
I don't know if Cranbrook ever really was "important." Cranbrook has always represented an alternative. I doing my best to make sure it still represents an "alternative."
11. How do you negotiate the balance of offering challenging works and the possibility of obscurantism? Do you concern yourself much with audience reception of the work?
Absolutely! it's a very fine balance. I firmly believe that you must never talk down to your audience. But, you must strive always to make that connection. It is something that I am constantly thinking about, and constantly revising within my own work. The point behind work is precisely to make that connection, to span that infinite black chasm that separates individual consciousness.
12. Type designer, poster maker, performance artist, educator. Phase three. Tell us about it.
I'm currently investigating Cennino's "Libro dell'Arte or The Craftsman's Handbook" It is an amazingly detailed account of rennaissance painting technique. So... to make a long story short I have been working on this idea of what I call the "radically fetishized poster." Among other things, I have been working on hyper traditional egg tempera paintings (no store bought shit: egg yolk, pigment and water on primed birch ply) that investigate some of the same issues I have been dealing with for the past 15 years. But what I'm trying to achieve is a preciousness, a sensuality of materiality and pigmentation. Now, you'd say how this design? Well first of all I could care less what it's called, but it is a simple natural progression of the ideas I have been working with since grad school.
13. Continuing your own work outside of graduate school, or even undergraduate, how did you escape the warm and enveloping fold of commercial practice. What was the breaking point and what were the steps you took, to ensure it would not happen again?
I escaped the warm enveloping fold of commercial practice by having the burning need to realize some small version of that ideal self that hovers on the horizon of possibility. I had a need to be more than what I was. There never was a plan B. I also don't measure success in terms of dollars or title.
14. You once said type design was your shortcut to design fame (infamy). What is today's type design?
That's a good question: I think there has been a real diffusion of the design media. A lot of the publications that seemed to control the "definition" of design seem to have lost a lot of their juice. Not by any fault of theirs, it's just with the proliferation of entertainment options their power has decreased. So I'm not sure if kids today have the same sense of community. There is definitely no "There" there. So I'm not sure that kids are able to perceive such a clear route. But If I had to put my finger on one thing it would be the idea that three twenty-five year old guys would get some macs and learn aftereffects, put a reel together and become a hipster post production house.
15. Anyone doing any interesting work these days in design, art, film, etc?
Yes, Samurai Jack is brilliant narrative, and it's on the cartoon network. Lars Van Trier has yet to make a bad film. Annish Kapoor's piece at the Tate modern last year was killer despite the fact that it was both big and red. Ed Fella is still a brilliant designer. Rudy Vanderlans is relentless in his restlessness. Johnny Cash is dead, but he did some amazing work into his seventies. What about the kidz?
16. The kidz. It is inevitable that a younger crop of designers will emerge and become the new voices that carry and shift the tide, see any wave makers out there?
Yea the kidz, that's a really good question... I think in design and the arts, the age of 30 is really young. Unlike with music, most visual artists reach maturity at about 30 to 35. you have almost no examples of the "Lee-ann rhymes syndrome." You know singing like Patsy Kline at 11. I just turned 37 and was considered professionally "young" until I took this job at Cranbrook at 35. (now I guess I'm old). So If we take a look at the ages of 19 to 35 what do I come up with? (Other than the Kidz in my own studio, which would be amazingly ego-centric). I'm stumped. Yea and I hang out in a lot of universities and grad schools. Maybe that's the problem!
Yea of course, I'd like to think that a few of my recent graduates will make some waves. I'd like to think that they both have the talent and the need to make good work. Who? Well, that's not an easy question. In the arts it's almost always the dark horse. If I look back upon the last three years I see a few moments that were really interesting. And, I've always said that at a certain level (grad school etc), almost everyone is capable of doing interesting work. The difficulty is in the actual doing. Once you leave an environment like Cranbrook, who will continue on the path...? Well, only time will tell. And once again I'd put my money on the dark horse. Now If I named names, I'd alienate people, and I'd most likely be wrong. But I strongly believe that this studio will/did produce some lions.
17. And finally, how do you make Cincinnati Chili?
Layer 1: Spaghetti
Layer 2: Seasoned meat (this is the hard part, I grew up in Cincinnati, and still have not found an ideal recipe. Skyline is THE chili house and they have that secret recipe under lock and key. But everybody knows it has something to do with chocolate.)
Layer3: Red Beans
Layer 4: Chopped white onion
Layer 5: Mounds of Shredded Cheddar Cheese; dress with a dash or two of Tobacco!